The Grid, part 2 – AutoDesk Inventor Tutorials for beginners

AutoDesk Inventor Tutorials for Beginners Series – The Grid, part 2 of 3

Hi there, welcome back. This is our AutoDesk Inventor Tutorials for Beginners series, and this particular article is part two about the setting up the grid in AutoDesk Inventor.

We’d left off creating some lines, noticing the constraint glyphs that appear as we sketch our lines, and setting up snap increments and snapping our line end points to the yellow snap dots. We’d just learned how to turn on major and minor gridlines.

When you’re done your sketching of lines, press ESCAPE to exit the line tool. Don’t forget click the Dimension tool to apply your dimensions. By the way, while I was drawing these lines, I had dynamic input available. This lets me input commands and values right into the graphic area while I have a tool open, so that I don’t have to mouse away from the graphic area to communicate with Inventor while a tool is open.

Here is an example of a dynamic input field–called the Heads Up Display in AutoDesk Inventor

To enable this option, go back to the Tools tab, and click on Application Options.

AutoDesk Inventor Tutorials – The Grid

On the Application Options dialog window, go to the Sketch tab.

AutoDesk Inventor Tutorials – The Grid

In AutoDesk Inventor, dynamic input is called Heads Up Display; you turn this on from the Sketch tab of this dialog window.

AutoDesk Inventor Tutorials – The Grid

Click the Settings button to make some adjustments; here’s what the Settings window looks like:

AutoDesk Inventor Tutorials – The Grid

Let’s cancel out of the Settings window. For now I’ll uncheck Enable heads up display. Now when I create a line, I don’t see the dynamic input. Press ESCAPE to exit the line tool. Don’t forget to dimension your work and then press ESCAPE to exit the dimension tool.

Let’s go back to the Tools tab. Click on Document Settings.

Document settings window – AutoDesk Inventor

Go to the Units tab of this window. As you saw earlier, we were working in the imperial system, in inches. Let’s go to the Sketch tab. Currently the snap settings are at 1/16th of an inch. This is the value that’s set in the both x and y directions. This value doesn’t have to the be the same for both directions. We can enter different values for the X and Y directions. It’s a good idea to enter whichever value is most appropriate to speed up your sketching via the snap functionality.